Mrs. MacFarlane smiled in a manner curiously shy for a widow of thirty, and murmured something to the effect that she knew Mr. Johnson had been a friend of her Hugh's. This was not strictly true, but Lafe would not have denied it to her for a herd of graded stuff. He leaned against the railing and waited patiently to learn her wishes. She had come to claim Hughie's estate and to make certain that his--grave--here she started to cry soundlessly into a handkerchief--received proper care. All this was very painful and Johnson stirred restlessly. Whenever Mrs. MacFarlane made reference to her late husband, it was always as her "boy," and the tone was one of such restrained adoration that Lafe experienced a sinking feeling beneath his vest. Listening to her--she was decently reserved and her talk escaped in snatches--he gathered that Hughie had been a great and noble man, which was an estimate of Hughie that never would have occurred to any of his acquaintances. "The feller must have had a heap of good in him somewhere, Buf'lo," he told Shortredge that night. Jim was now engaged in the slaughtering business in Cananea. "A man can't make a woman like her care that a-way else." "I don't know about that, Lafe. I don't know about that. I ain't so shore," said his friend. "It's most amazing how they kin forget everything when he's gone. They only remember li'l' things he done for 'em; things what a feller might do for a yallow dawg." The trip across the mountains was a full day's drive, and Johnson was to call for Mrs. MacFarlane at dawn with a buckboard and a mule team. She kept him waiting forty minutes, but he passed the time patiently, recalling that a certain female in Badger was wont to do the same thing. This recollection brought a grin to his countenance, and may have been responsible for the solicitous manner with which he seated Mrs. MacFarlane in the vehicle. They set out at the sober gait suited to a wearing drive. The landlord, after watching them for a while, remarked thoughtfully to the barkeeper that he hoped they would find everything all right. "Hughie ought for to have told us he was married," he said slowly. "Yes. He ought. I sure hope they'll find everything all right. She's an almighty fine woman."